The Country Doctor: Captivating tales from a young GP's case notes

by Jean McConnell

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Peter. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I said who are we crewing for this year ‒ Harold Jolly or Charles Hedley-Smythe?’

  Linda realised that the subject matter had segued into the world of yacht racing. She was lost here. This was an area of Peter’s life where she had no part. She felt excluded ‒ unimportant. And she suspected that Susan had intended as much.

  But the question itself seemed simple enough, and Linda was surprised at Peter’s hesitation. Until he answered.

  ‘Susan,’ he said, ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you. I won’t be sailing this summer. I’m so new to the Practice. There’s too much to do.’

  ‘But you’ll have to have some time off,’ pressed Susan.

  ‘If I do,’ said Peter, firmly, ‘it won’t be away from here. I’ve so much to learn about this place. And I’m needed.’

  ‘But ‒’ Susan turned her blue eyes on John Cooper. Clearly she was hoping he’d put in the right word: tell his son to enjoy his usual summer activity. He didn’t.

  ‘I’m sorry, Susan. But I’m quite sure I won’t be crewing this year.’

  ‘But, Peter, you don’t have to make that sort of sacrifice just because ‒’

  Peter laid a hand on her arm. ‘Susan,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to sail this summer.’

  She really shouldn’t have asked that question, thought Linda. And found it in her heart to be sorry for the girl, who sat pink-faced and defeated. What’s more, Linda was sure that the rejection was not just a matter of the sailing, and that Susan had realised that too.

  As they all dispersed, Susan held out her hand to Linda.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she said. ‘I’m glad I met you.’ She gave a wry little smile.

  You needn’t look at me like that, thought Linda. Just because you’ve lost, doesn’t mean I’ve won!

  Apart from her own inner feelings, Linda was more than glad that Peter was putting the Practice before personal pleasure for the time being, because it indicated a dedication that she knew would please his father, and she herself felt was necessary.

  The extra doctor was helping to relieve the heavy pressure of work, which had increased dramatically when a fourth factory got into operation and its employees arrived. It was rumoured that there had been difficulties getting the complex machinery into production and long shifts were being worked throughout the day and night. This brought with it side effects ‒ accident cases and stress problems.

  Then one day Sandra Fenwick appeared again in Linda’s surgery. As she had not seen her lately, Linda had believed the girl had at last adjusted to country life. Certainly she had a new and determined look in her eye, but it was not an expression that set Linda’s mind at rest. She had brought in the baby for his three-in-one immunisation. The child was bouncing with health and hardly turned a hair while Linda dealt with him.

  Sandra Fenwick thanked Linda politely and rose to go.

  ‘Are you feeling more settled now, Mrs Fenwick?’ asked Linda, looking at the girl closely. ‘Are you beginning to enjoy your surroundings a little more now?’

  ‘Hardly,’ replied the girl. ‘In fact I’ve come to the conclusion that one way and another there’s no point in me staying.’

  ‘Sit down,’ said Linda. ‘What do you mean?’

  Sandra Fenwick hesitated, then she returned to her seat and told Linda her plans. It appeared that Jim, her husband, was spending more hours at work than in his home. And when indoors, he was more often than not asleep with fatigue. And her neighbours seemed fully occupied with the decoration of their new homes. She had reached the stage where the lonely dark winter days had got the better of her and she was leaving Jim at the end of the month and going back to live with her mother.

  ‘It’s all arranged,’ concluded Sandra Fenwick.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ said Linda.

  Mrs Fenwick dropped her eyes, but her jaw was set in a stubborn line.

  ‘Will you do me a favour?’ asked Linda.

  The girl looked up at her enquiringly.

  ‘During your last few days here, get out in the woods and take a look at things.’

  ‘There’s nothing to see.’

  ‘There are lambs already up at Barnett’s Farm.’

  Linda felt inadequately equipped to explain what she instinctively felt the rural life had to offer, for wasn’t she herself still supremely ignorant on country matters?

  In this respect she felt jealous of Peter’s knowledge of things that were to her still mysteries, hedged about with unexpected custom or necessity.

  There was the day when she’d omitted to walk through the disinfectant bath when entering a farm where Foot and Mouth disease was suspected. Peter had certainly made the point clear to her!

  And when one of the farmers had shot a rather attractive stray dog, she’d felt terribly angry. But Peter saw it with a countryman’s eyes. You can’t have dogs running loose on farmland. They have to be kept under control as much as in town. She’d had quite a row with Peter that time but in the end she came a little nearer to understanding his argument, particularly when she’d seen six ewes in lamb with their throats ripped out.

  Living close to nature did have a harsh side which could astonish a townsman. Poor Sandra Fenwick could see only the hostility and indifference around her.

  It bothered Linda and she brought the subject up a few days later when she and Peter were having a relaxing lunch together.

  John Cooper had gone to a sherry party and she had suggested that Peter join her at the stable flat. Now they were both enjoying roast beef, baked potatoes and sprouts.

  But Peter’s view was less than sympathetic towards Sandra Fenwick.

  ‘So she’s going off and leaving her husband flat when he most needs her, is she?’ he said, stabbing at another potato.

  ‘I’m not saying it’s a great idea,’ said Linda. ‘But I can understand a little of how the girl feels. Everything’s come up to boiling pitch with her. It is at that sort of climax in our life that we reveal our true character. There’s a build up to a flashpoint of tension and out come our basic qualities or defects. I can’t condemn the girl so totally.’

  ‘That’s because you’re a woman. You’re regarding it on a purely emotional level. What about the poor husband’s supper? Who’s to cook it? Did you say there were more sprouts?’

  Linda passed him the vegetable dish.

  ‘You mean men never get emotional?’ said Linda, looking at him sideways.

  ‘They’re more objective,’ went on Peter. ‘Now take these baked potatoes. I think they’re marvellous, but I don’t say “My word she cooked them specially for me, she’s in love with me”. Or if they’d been revolting I wouldn’t think “She’s seeking to ruin my digestion and damage my professional career”. No, as a man, I view these potatoes with detachment and say “This woman is an excellent cook”, and that’s that!’

  Linda snorted.

  ‘No,’ said Peter calmly, ‘I think your patient Mrs Fenwick has met her testing time and reacted with typical feminine lack of logic, reason and common sense.’

  ‘What a diabolically ridiculous and smug statement!’ shouted Linda, smacking down her knife and fork.

  ‘You see, you prove my point,’ said Peter with infuriating calm. ‘At once a wild defensive reaction.’

  ‘Defensive nothing!’ cried Linda. ‘I’m going to demolish your argument, believe me!’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Peter.

  The telephone rang.

  ‘Saved by the bell!’ he added, jauntily.

  Linda lifted the receiver. Almost before she could speak a voice was gabbling at her urgently. Linda listened with growing alarm.

  ‘We’re coming!’ she said. ‘At once!’

  Seeing her face, Peter rose and came over. She put down the receiver.

  ‘We must get over to the new factories, right away. There’s been an explosion at the marine engineering works,’ she said. ‘Part of the building has collapsed and there are
workmen trapped.’

  She crossed the room and collected her case, as Peter made for the door.

  ‘The engineering works?’ he said. ‘That’s the one with the clock tower?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Linda, ‘this side of the housing estate ‒ but there are fire engines there and a whole block is involved. I don’t think we’ll miss it,’ she said grimly.

  The two doctors ran across to the surgery for medical equipment, then to their cars. Peter’s BMW shot ahead and Linda soon lost sight of him amongst several other cars that were headed to the scene of the disaster.

  The dust had not yet settled over the rubble that spilled down from the side of the building, exposing gaping holes and jutting girders where had been a three-storey factory section. Here and there were tongues of flame and firemen were tackling these, whilst others were digging and hauling away hunks of masonry.

  Already there were numbers of people gathered and frantic groups were clearing piles of bricks, in an attempt to release their workmates who were trapped below. Two men were carrying a stretcher towards an ambulance and Linda could see another victim being lifted from the wreckage. She clambered over the crumbling mountain towards the spot.

  ‘I’m a doctor,’ she said.

  ‘Thank God,’ said a worried fireman. ‘Can you give this poor devil a shot?’

  Linda bent over the mutilated figure and administered a merciful injection.

  ‘How many people are in here?’ she asked.

  ‘About twenty. But there are some unharmed but trapped through there.’ He pointed. ‘They’re cutting a way to them.’

  Linda picked her way deeper into the remains of the building. She caught sight of Peter kneeling beside a man with a gash in his head. And then she spotted John Cooper. Someone must have contacted him, and he’d come from his party. He was half hidden in a knot of firemen, and his coat was off. She could see his back straining at something.

  A group of men were pulling away a shattered door. They beckoned her over and she quickly hurried to their side. They had found someone. But he was dead. Linda confirmed this, and moved on.

  A fireman grabbed her arm and guided her urgently down a corridor to an opening in a wall.

  ‘There’s a chap in there,’ he said. ‘He sounds pretty groggy. We can’t get him out yet, but they’re cutting through as fast as they can. Can you help him?’

  Linda began to climb into the hole.

  ‘Wait, miss,’ said the fireman. ‘I ought to warn you, that wall could collapse at any moment.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Linda. Flat on her stomach she eased her slim body through.

  When she reached the man, Linda found he was trapped by the legs. He did not seem to be in pain but was badly shocked. He grasped her hand gratefully.

  An hour later they were still incarcerated. The sound of hacking and drilling came from above and an occasional alarming fall of dust. The minutes passed. Linda and the man talked. About their jobs, about what had caused the explosion. Anything. It helped.

  A voice called in to tell them that all the others had been rescued and to keep their spirits up as all efforts were now centred on this part. But time went by. The noises got nearer and louder, and at one point a beam crashed down close by.

  Then from the opening of the tunnel Linda suddenly heard Peter’s voice.

  ‘Linda!’ he called, urgently. ‘Come out of there. I’ll take over.’

  ‘No,’ said Linda. ‘We’re O.K.’

  ‘It’s dangerous!’ His voice was a tone higher.

  ‘It’s all right!’ said Linda sharply, hearing an intake of breath from the man beside her.

  ‘I’m coming through to get you out!’

  Linda heard a fall of debris. Her heart pounded. Suppose he disturbed some vital support and brought the whole structure down!

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Peter!’ Why was he endangering another life? What could she say to stop him. ‘Get back!’ she commanded. ‘You may be needed!’

  Her words brought Peter to a halt and she heard him clambering back to safety. She sighed with relief.

  Linda and the man were released twenty minutes later. She followed the stretcher as they carried him out into the daylight.

  A woman ran forward and threw her arms round him, sobbing.

  ‘Jim!’ she cried. ‘Oh, Jim dear!’

  It was Sandra Fenwick.

  As Linda walked off John Cooper intercepted her. He placed his hand on her shoulder and gripped it warmly. He did not need to speak.

  She moved wearily to her car. Peter was standing beside it. He looked very shaken.

  ‘You didn’t have to go to such lengths to explode my theory,’ he said.

  ‘What? What did you say?’

  Peter had opened the door of his car and was helping her in.

  ‘My car ‒’ began Linda.

  ‘The police will bring it. Right now I’m driving you home.’

  ‘Are you sure you yourself ‒’

  ‘Don’t rub it in,’ said Peter ruefully. ‘I tell you, I accept that women are capable of staying cool in a crisis; and that men are capable of losing their heads. Some are anyway!’

  Linda smiled, and felt the dust crack on her face.

  ‘I was glad you were nearby,’ she said.

  Peter suddenly gathered her in his arms and buried his face against her shoulder.

  ‘Oh, darling, I’ve never felt so worried in my whole life. I was sure the building would fall and you’d be killed. It was a nightmare. To have lost you!’

  Linda stroked his hair and held him close.

  ‘And you were wonderful,’ he added. ‘I admired you so much. I suppose I always have really. I always suspected you had guts. But I thought it was just because I loved you that I was giving you more credit than other women. That maybe I was seeing you in a rose-coloured spotlight!’

  He was cleaning her face gently with his handkerchief as he talked. ‘I admit totally that I very nearly made a complete fool of myself out there. Not entirely mind ‒ but I certainly could have.’

  Linda smiled. ‘You see how people can behave when they’re ‒’ She stopped short.

  ‘I guess anybody at all can lose their wits in an emergency. But in my case, of course, there were mitigating circumstances.’

  She looked up into his face and what she saw was as delightful as ever. But there was something new as well. A kind of calm satisfaction. It was as if something important had been settled. Another sort of wall has crumbled away today, thought Linda.

  Three weeks later, Linda visited the new housing estate to call on Jim Fenwick, whose legs were making a slow but definite recovery.

  Sandra Fenwick took her through to the living room where her husband was sitting. She looked very pretty.

  ‘You’re still here, then,’ said Linda, smiling at her.

  ‘Look!’ said the girl. She pointed to a table laden with fruit and flowers and get-well cards. ‘From the neighbours and people in the village.’ Her eyes were suddenly filled with happy tears. ‘They’ve been absolutely wonderful. I think I’ve made some real friends.’

  ‘I’m so very glad,’ said Linda.

  ‘So am I!’ said Jim Fenwick, with an affectionate grin at his wife.

  ‘And Doctor,’ said Sandra Fenwick, awkwardly. ‘I did as you said. Have you seen? The hedges are covered with green buds. Doesn’t Spring happen suddenly here? It’ll be our first in the country.’

  Mine too, thought Linda. And wondered what the burgeoning year held for her.

  She drove back slowly along the quiet lanes beside the rust red fields waiting to be warmed into new life. Like the sweet seed that had now so surely been sown in her heart. Peter loved her and wanted her for always. She’d read it in his eyes. He knew as well as she did that they belonged together. And one day soon, she knew without a doubt, that he would tell her so.

  THE END

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  Read Her Australian Summer now from Amazon UK

  Read Her Australian Summer now from Amazon Australia

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